'Prisoners of the Ghostland' is Nic Cage's ballsy Mad Max | Sundance movie review

Nicolas Cage is on a mission to return a missing woman in the Japanese Wild West post-apocalyptic hellscape that is Prisoners of the Ghostland

Prisoners of the Ghostland is easily the wildest film of Nicolas Cage’s epic career. Mixing elements of Escape from New York and Mad Max: Fury Road with acid, the result is a psuedo-western-samarai post-apocalyptic action film that is going to be a midnight screening staple for years to come.

In the words of Trinity the Tuck, “I don’t know what the f—k she’s saying, but girl, I am living.” Prisoners of the Ghostland is an assault on the eyes, ears, mind, and sanity as Nicolas Cage rips through a Japanese Wild West post-apocalyptic hellscape littered with *checks notes* mutated corpses of prisoners. Yeah, I think I got that right.

To say that director Sion Sono, who is making his English-language debut with the 2021 Sundance Film Festival premiere of this film, is one of the most subversive filmmakers working today is an understatement. This satirical pseudo-western-samurai film feels like it has never existed before in any form. Yes, comparisons could be made to George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road or Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill or John Carpenter’s Escape from New York, but it’s his amalgamation of all those films, combined with some inventive East meets West production and costume design, that makes Prisoners of the Ghostland a singular property.

Hero (Cage) is tasked by the Governor (Bill Moseley) to rescue his daughter Bernice (Atomic Blonde’s Sofia Boutella) from a mysterious outpost just past the ghostland where unknown nightmares await. And that’s really the entire plot. Nothing else is going on — and nothing else needs to go on. All you need to enjoy this film is the wildly inventive staging of this incredibly built world, the surprisingly adept action, and some of ballsy humor and line delivery from Nicolas Cage — this is a pun.

I could go on and on about Prisoners of the Ghostland. I could tell you about the testicle-exploding suit or the interpretive dance explaining a nuclear explosion or the bank heist gone wrong with famed actor John Cassavetes son, but I’m just going to let you experience this acid trip of a film on its own. Is it good? I mean, objectively, no. It’s dramatically inert, devoid of character, and confusing as all hell. Did I enjoy every minute of it? You’re damn right.

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Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter here. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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Karl Delossantos

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Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.